Valkrionn
The Hamster King
Interesting strat... Never really thought of OO Sheaim.
Woops, I forgot to make Malchavic Emergent. That'll be fixed.
You should be able to improve all coastal/ocean tiles with either Fishing Boats or Whaling Boats.
Haha, won't have as many big animals early on next patch... But you WILL have an invisible marksman, with like 1 . Keep a scout with you, or the settler will be lost.
Hmm... That would be a good change to Arcane, and would make it useful. I think I'll do that.
1. Leaders:
Os Gabella. Why ? Malchavic = only 1 trait and that trait is pretty weak. I think he s intented to be an emergent leader capable of getting another trait but currently doesnt work that way making him the worst possible leader choice for the sheaim.
Ophelia IS an emergent leader but for my strategy not interesting as it benefits a lot from having the summoner trait. Now of course Ophelia could get this one via emergent mechanics but its always a gamble and I dont like reloading to get the better results.
Tebryn is the slightly worse Os in general but even more so for my strategy. Both share summoner so thats good but the Arcane trait is pretty useless as passive xp gain for arcanes in FF was nerfed into almost uselessness and therefore potency is merely good for the spell strenght bonus but that one isnt that big of a deal imho.
Since Os makes a good wonderbuilder and it lies along the critical research path the catacomb librarus is pretty much guaranteed to be built by me, so I ll have mage guilds for free which beats mage guilds for 50% less hammers.
So I m recommending Os Gabella for the important summoner trait and since many wonders come in handy in this strategy , industrious is also put into good use.
Woops, I forgot to make Malchavic Emergent. That'll be fixed.
4. Your starting city:
Most of the time you wont start near water (especially with flavourstart on) but if you do, chose carefully. Obviously water has some benefits: we re going for OO so we ll have to research fishing & sailing anyhow. and workboats dont stop citygrowth like workers. good good. Please keep in mind however that water is horsehockey terrain later on since it cannot be improved (oceans) or can only be marginally improved (coasts -> fishing villages) it got nothing on a city with many rivertiles and cottages/farms.
Since your first city should be your future main city (capital and city with the tower of complanency) I d only recommend settling near water if you can get a location that has as little ocean as possible, preferably more land than water tiles and at least 2 good resources in the water.
Else go for a city with preferably no mountains in the BFC, many river tiles, some food resources, you know the drill
Personally I took a coast city, but it was a really good starting place with many resources and more land than water tiles.
You should be able to improve all coastal/ocean tiles with either Fishing Boats or Whaling Boats.
5. Your starting phase:
1. stay close to your cultural borders
2. have your adept and his skeleton escort the settler
3. the skeleton is expendable so as long as only 1 tough beast is attacking you cant really lose your adept or settler since you can always resummon skeleton next turn.
4. if you see a dragon or a huge bear RUUUUUN!
Haha, won't have as many big animals early on next patch... But you WILL have an invisible marksman, with like 1 . Keep a scout with you, or the settler will be lost.
Suggestions:
The arcane trait needs fixing. With potency almost useless due to low passive xp gain & caps in Fall further its a pretty bad trait, one of the worst.
Spiritual not only gives potency, it also gives mobility and it also gives no anarchy from changing religion / civics. And as everybody knows . since savants can upgrade to mages spiritual pretty much means that even your arcane units will get potency anyhow PLUS mobility (which cancels out the one free promotion that you could argue is lost by going savant -> mage instead of adept -> mage ).
I m not sure if my memory is playing tricks on me but wasnt Arcane at one point in base FFH supposed to also give 1 free promotion to each arcane units ?
That would be a welcome change. In the life of an archmage that d total out as 3 free promotions (1 at adept, 1 at mage, 1 at archmage, obviously on top of the free ones they already get) so it d be a pretty usefull trait.
Hmm... That would be a good change to Arcane, and would make it useful. I think I'll do that.